


Dysphoria

by BowBeforeTippy (TheBaneOfWraith)



Series: Metamorphosis [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Lance (Voltron), Gen, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 18:03:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10996122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBaneOfWraith/pseuds/BowBeforeTippy
Summary: Lance has been feeling strange lately. He feels condensed, compacted, like his bones should be growing in ways that the confines of his skin won’t allow.





	Dysphoria

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in love with Altean Lance, so here's my contribution to the fandom.
> 
> Update: Edited on 3/1/18. Nothing major, just cleaned up some grammar errors and made some alterations to word choice.

The good dreams always hurt Lance the most because he usually dreams of home. Tonight his dream is a memory. One he’s been having often.

He sits atop his papa’s shoulders, stargazing. They’re on the beach behind their home in Varadero. It’s a hot, balmy night in late summer. The stars are bright specks of silver dust scattered across the black ether of space.

The moon hangs low in the sky, nearly touching the horizon. Lance knows that the moon is a waning crescent; he’d memorized all of its phases from a book he’d borrowed from the library.

Hardly anyone reads actual books anymore, but his mama finds them charming, so she takes him with her to the library every friday afternoon and lets him borrow anything he wants. Sometimes Lance and his mama are the only ones there. The librarians know him well and give him free reign to wander where he pleases.

He’s grown to like the musty smell of the books, the feeling of smooth pages and textured covers. It feels more personal somehow, more engaging, reading words formed from ink instead of pixels on a screen.

Lance extends his arm in front of him, his hand in a fist. He sticks out his thumb and aligns the nail to fit into the indent of the moon. He wonders what it would be like to be a creature with crescent moons for nails and stars for eyes and skin the color of nebulae.

Lance has been feeling strange lately. He feels condensed, compacted, like his bones should be growing in ways that the confines of his skin won’t allow.

Lance lowers his arm and grips lightly onto his papa’s hair.

“Papa,” he hesitates for a moment, “where do I come from?” Lance loves his family. They’ve always made him feel like one of them even though he isn’t, not by blood, at least. It’s never really mattered to him before, but suddenly he’s curious.

Papa lifts Lance up off of his shoulders. “You come from the stars,” he says, and Lance can hear the smile in his voice as he tosses him gently into the air.

He imagines what it would be like if he never fell back down, if he were to keep going up, and up, and up forever. He thinks he might like it, losing himself in the spaces between the stars. But gravity is inescapable and he falls back into his papa’s arms.

“Liar!” Lance yells, because it’s not a real answer, but he smiles and laughs anyways.

Papa sets him gently on the ground and kneels in front of him so they’re eye to eye, his face is suddenly serious.

“I’d never lie to you, Lance.”

Papa hasn’t ever lied to him before, but how can it possibly be true? He doesn’t know what to say so he doesn’t say anything, he just stares into his papa’s earth-brown eyes, searching for answers he isn’t sure he wants.

And suddenly his papa is smiling again, with just his mouth and not his eyes, and he’s standing up and lifting Lance back up onto his shoulders.

“I think that it’s long past both of our bedtimes,” he says as he starts toward home.

“Okay.” It isn’t really that late, but he does feel very sleepy. He gets exhausted easily, sometimes for no reason at all, and he ends up sleeping for hours longer than he should. It scares mama and papa when they can’t wake him up some mornings but the doctors can’t find anything wrong.

Lance gets ready for bed. Papa tucks him in and reads to him until he falls asleep.

When Lance wakes up he’s in bed in his room in the Castle of Lions. He sits up and looks at the clock. It’s the middle of the ship’s night cycle.

Lance puts his head in hands. He feels ill, like he might vomit, and he starts to shake. He heaves great trembling breaths.

When he was younger he thought he’d eventually outgrow the feeling of wrongness. But he didn’t outgrow it. He still feels like he’s _wearing_ his body instead just _being_.

It’s easier to ignore when he has company, but when he’s alone it consumes him. He wants to scream, to claw his way out of his skin, to break himself open and see what’s inside.

He throws back the sheets, gets out of bed, and slips out of his room. He wanders until morning.

He’s waiting in the kitchen when Hunk arrives to make breakfast. Hunk looks worried but he doesn’t say anything, Lance knows he looks as exhausted as he feels, but he lets Lance help him with breakfast.

Lance is thankful to not be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!
> 
> Update: I want to thank everyone who left comments and kudos! You’re all so wonderful and kind. I kinda went MIA and dropped off the face of the earth after posting this and I’m totally the worst for not responding to any comments. I just want you all to know how much I appreciate you and how much your kind comments mean to me.  
> I do have ideas for how I want to proceed with this story, I just have to get around to writing them. I’ve made this fic part one of a series, so you can bookmark it and be alerted when I finally get around to posting part two. I’ll try not to make you wait too long, but I won’t make promises I might not be able to keep.


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